Reporters in the Family Court

Legal bloggers and journalists are allowed to come into hearings about children. There is a reporting scheme which is designed to allow reporters and qualified legal writers to report on what they see and hear in court.

As part of this, the court may make an order to allow a reporter to report some or all of the case. This does not mean that all the details can be reported - all the details that might identify the parents or the children are protected. This includes details of where you live, pictures of the children or details about people who are looking after them. These are kept private to look after the child(ren)‘s privacy. The order that allows a reporter to do this is called a transparency order. The order contains an injunction - breaching this is a very serious matter. If a journalist publishes anything that might identify you, or the children, they could be fined or sent to prison.

Only reporters are allowed to publish details about the case. This means that nobody else can share private information from the case anywhere.

You can speak to a reporter, and they are allowed to quote you if you speak to them, as long as they look after the child(ren)‘s privacy. You cannot put any information from the case on social media or any other place. If a story is written about this case, you cannot share the story on your social media, or do anything to let anybody know that the report is about your case.

If you don’t want an order to be made, you will have the chance to say why, or tell the judge if there are certain things that you don’t want to be reported. If things change, you can ask the court to change the order on another day.

If an order is made, a reporter will be allowed to make notes in court about what they see and hear. They will also allowed to be some documents. They must not tape, or video record the proceedings, or live stream or tweet the case. This is a contempt of court.

The Transparency Project